Improvement in the construction and manufacture of printing-type



Fig. 1.

waigagm'p Fly: 2.

Fig.

- UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

IMPROVEMENT lN THE CONSTRUCTION AND MANUFACTURE 0F PRINTING-TYPE.

Specilcation forming part of Letters Patent No. 55,299, dated June 5, 1866.

To all whom it may concern.-

Be it known that I, THOMAS S. HUDSON, of East Cambridge, in the county of Middlesex and State of Massachusetts, have invented a new and useful Construction or llanufacture of Printing-Type; and I do hereby declare the same to be fully described in the following specification, and represented in the accompanying drawings, myinvention being specially useful for the form ation or production of types used in hand-stamps for postmarking letters or for canceling revenue or postage stamps.

Of the said drawings, Figure l denotes a face view, and Fig. 2 a section, of a type-plate constructed in accordance with my invention.

The first part of my invention consists in raising the printing-surfaces from a thin sheet or piece of metal by means of one or more dies or a punch and die suitably formed; and the second part of myinvention consists in making a printing-face on the part or parts so raised by planing, filing, or reducing' the same, so as to remove the round edges and to produce an even, flat, and defined surface suitable for printing the intended letter, letters, or figure or gures.

It is well known that letters or figures cannot easily be struck np from a thin plate of metal by a punch or die so as to have suitable printing-faces produced by the female die, and this on accountl of the roundness of the edges of the printing-types or figures, which naturally results from the fact that the metal, when forced into the female die by the punch, cannot be made to completely fill such die, but is left with edges more or less round, whereby it is rendered unfit for being used as a type. To complete it for such use it has to be reduced to a depth sufticient to remove this roundness of the edges and create on it a smooth, iat surface. This reduction I effect by planing, tilin g, or grinding the type to the extent required.

Figure 3 denotes a section of the type as formed in the die, the part removed being that situated above the dotted line a a.

With my improvement in making the type I am enabled to produce it much cheaper than by the usual process of letter-foundin g or chiseling the letters, and thus to make types for hand-stamps at rates which very materially cheapen such articles to the community and enable them to be generally used, which could not be the case were it necessary to make their endless type chains or wheels by forming the printing parts thereof by chiseling them by hand from the various links-a process which, besides being very expensive, could not be done without very much difficulty.

In making a type-.chain or a printing plate, band, or'stri p, I, after the letters or ii gures may have been punched or raised thereon by dies, grind down or reduce them all to oneplane, and for this purpose the chain composed of links with one or more letters or figures raised on each by means ot' punches and dies may be laidin a groove formed in a metallic plate provided with suitable guides, on which a filing or planin gin strumentm ay travel and be guided while being used in reducing the types or removing' the surfaces from cach required to bring its face to a level or in one plane with all the rest of the faces ofthe other types and to sufficiently form the faces for printing the letters or figures with suitably-detined edges.

l claim- The said manufacture or printing-type, made substantially as described, viz: by the combined processes of stamping the letter or figure lfrom a plate or piece of metal and subsequently reducing the same, in manner and for the purposes set forth.

THOS. S. HUDSON.

Witnesses E. E. EDDY, E. P. HALE, JR. 

